Part 1 of Episode 5 Interview with John and Taylor from Daylight.

D: How are you enjoying Australia so far, tell us a little about your trip?

J: What we have done so far? Well I hit a car today…whoops.

D: You’re driving on the other side of the road though so I’m gonna let you pass. What are you doing driving though aren’t their Australians in the van with you?

J: I know, apparently they can’t drive. And our driver is currently taking the day off because we have a 12 hour hike tonight so she is resting up for the long drive, so I have been driving. Taylor has driven a little bit too but I’ve been doing a huge bulk of the fun stuff. It’s really weird though.

D: You got it down straight away though?

J: It’s not too hard just judging everything and lining yourself up with completely the other side of the road and the car is just really weird.

D: I saw the scrape on the van. That’s nothing.

J: It’s not too bad so I’m feeling pretty good about it.

Taylor: You should see the other guy.

D: So tell us a little bit about how you guys started out?

J: I guess it was about the start of 2008, Taylor and I had talked about starting a band and we basically just got together and started writing songs. Then we got Joe in the mix a couple of months down the line and that really shaped our sound I think. We went through a small series of guitar players until we landed on Jake and it kind of just finished out the sound and got us to where we are now. We really like our current line up and everything that is going on with us.

D: So you were all playing in previous bands that you knew each other from?

J: Yeah we are all from the same town and we’ve all played in bands, not with each other, but we’ve just known each other through all that. I tried to help Taylor’s old band out a lot and just stuff like that. We all kind of knew each other but had never played music together.

D: And you started playing shows straight away?

J: Not at all, we waited. It took a good 11 months until we finished our songs and everything and we played our first show in November of 2008. And we waited even longer to get our demo online after that. We played shows here and there and Joe and I are in other bands that tour all the time so when we get home we try to play caus we try to get through it without scat (?) members and everything. We didn’t want to rush into shows because we just wanted to take our time and take the right steps, I guess.

D: So you guys tour in other bands?

J: Joe and I do yeah.

D: So how do you find that balance? As soon as you are home is it time to start something new with Daylight?

J: As far as Daylight playing out I have to keep on the ball with Joe’s band’s booking agent because I book shows for my other band, so I have to talk to him to try and coordinate so both are bands are out at the same time. Because it doesn’t really work too well if Joe’s gone for 2 months then when he gets back I go out for a month because then Daylight is literally never going to get to play. That’s were we are at. So when we get home, we always try and write songs. Taylor is always riffing out songs with Jake trying to make new stuff up and every time I come back they got a whole slew of riffs to start writing new songs. So it doesn’t really stop, it just kind of slows it down a little.

D: Well what we do on D.I.Wireless is we also play some tracks, and of course you guys being the guests we invite you to play some songs so we’re gonna get you to introduce the first song that you have chosen.

T: This is our friends Title Fight, another Pennsylvania band, and the song is called Symmetry, and it’s off their new record The Last Thing You Forget. They are doing really well right now, and they’re really good. We have known them for a little while and they are the nicest people. And they are so good. There is nothing really else I can say…

D: We were chatting before about the fact you are out here is quite interesting because you are quite a young band in terms of – you really only started to get your stuff together last year – but all of a sudden you are out here in Australia which lots of bands who are out here for a while don’t get the chance to do. How did that come about?

T: Well basically I was driving home one morning and I got an email about a tour and it just said ‘Have you ever thought about coming to Australia?’ And I book for a couple of bands so I wasn’t sure what band it was for. So I was like ‘What band is this for’ thinking it was for one of the other bands. And they emailed back and were like ‘This is for Daylight’, and I was like ‘Well yeah, but we haven’t really toured that much in America yet and we haven’t really done much of anything and that’s not really in our plans right now, but yeah that would be awesome!’ So we basically just kept talking and it was actually Julian who was emailing me wanting to bring us over because he heard us somehow. I don’t know how it happened on his end that he decided to take a chance on a very young American band but he did. I had been doing really well in my own personal business so I was able to fund everyone’s ticket since no one else had any money and that is basically how it happened. Once we saw it was all coming together and it wasn’t just a scam as Jake’s sister thought it was, we decided to do it. We’re happy with the way things are going and hear nothing but good things about the shows ahead.

D: So Daylight had done some touring in the States?

J: We did a short stint about 9 days long in the beginning of July we did a couple of the shows with Title Fight and played one with Transit, who you are going to hear a little bit of later in the show. It went really well, we were pretty well received. We had a couple of duds, but first tour you can’t really expect that much of anything, that is just the way it is. So we did that and we are planning on doing some more in the later part of the year but we are not really sure about with what Jake our guitarist and school is concerned because we got him to take the semester off because we were coming to Australia and it is possibly a once in a lifetime thing, hopefully not though.

D: And can you recap exactly where you have been so far?

J: We left America on Sunday night and got in here Tuesday. Hellish long flight…awful. I watched like 6 movies to kill a lot of time. Julian, thankfully, forgot we were coming in and we woke him up in the morning and he rushed over to the airport and we basically spent that day just walking around Sydney. Then early Thursday we flew up to Townsville and we had to drive that day up to Cairns, and we played up in Cairns on Thursday night.

D: And how were those shows?

J: That (Cairns) was the weirdest experience of my show playing life, because it was like a club/show so the first band played, and then they blasted a bunch of club music and all of a sudden a whole swarm of club dudes and girls in meat market outfits were in and bumpin’ and grindin’ for a while and then we started playing and everyone left and it was the 20 kids who were there to see the show.

D: So you cleared the floor?

J: Oh we cleared it. It opened up that’s for sure. But it was just very weird. But then Townsville was good especially for a Townsville show from what I’ve heard because apparently it usually draws just like 40 kids but there was like 70 kids. It wasn’t really our market of crowd but kids stayed and kids watched some kids new our songs so I definitely think it was a positive night.

D: And the reaction was good chatting to them after?

J: Definitely. I definitely think it was something very new for some of those kids too caus it was totally a different scene.

D: Well it’s pretty good for you guys because – there are bands that do tour up there – but a lot of the bands, particularly from the States, they don’t get the chance to duck up there because it’s a money thing.

J: I was told that aside from Strung Out and No Use for a Name recently we were one of the very few American bands that have gone up that far, and not even Australian bands get up there that much because it is just such a hike and not cost effective.

D: So, I’ll get you guys to play another song. What are you going to play?

J: This is a band from our town called Balance and Composure. I definitely think they’re an incredible band that needs more exposure. Hopefully they will be doing more stuff in the future, more than just playing Doylestown.

Go to 19min on Episode 5 at home to listen to Balance and Composure and the rest of the Daylight interview!

GUEST COLUMNS

In a new guest column on D.I.Wireless, Wil Wagner talks Australian Rules Football – just in time for the September finals. Part introduction to the game to overseas readers – part ode to the positivity that can be found in professional sport.

The pilgrimage to Florida for the punk rock super-party called FEST is one that will remain close to D.I.Wireless. But organisers of NOT FEST in Melbourne have an interesting option for those who can’t make the trip.

D.I.Wireless is excited to bring you the latest in our ‘Shoot The Shit’ interview series. In this edition we throw some stuff at Pete Pee from long running and well respected Adelaide DIY punk/hardcore label Pee Records.

In October 2011, the makers of D.I.Wireless podcast embarked on
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D.I.Wireless is a online radio show produced out of Brisbane, Australia. To give a little back...to keep on going.
It's mission will always be for people listening to spend less time in front of the screen they are looking at right now..
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